Appropriation of an Unknown Culture

(Taken by Molly Johnson-Molly Mac Photography)

“I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley/To do Black music so selfishly/ And use it to get myself wealthy...” (Mathers, Marshall. 2002)

“Whiteness” and its relation to Hip Hop seems to play a role almost every instance Hip Hop is brought up. The reason for this is probably the simple fact that Hip Hop is a genre of music that rose from the culture of blacks and latinos and not whites. Different forms of expressions came together and created a genre that included everything representative of poverty, race, inequality, lack of education, and injustice, all of which were part of the everyday lives of blacks and latinos at the time and even still today. So, honestly, it almost feels as if a white entertainer should first receive the ok from the Hip Hop crowd before they are able to make money off of it. But, how does the genre’s supporters decide who gets to perform for them and who does not? I would say that first and foremost, the artist has to be relatable. It has to be someone who has also struggled. Preferably, someone who grew up in a one-parent household, under welfare and/or poverty, is a school dropout, drug user and/or seller, and had an overall “dysfunctional” childhood.  Now, why is this? Why do these white performers have to fit all or most these criteria in order to be successful in the Hip Hop genre, meanwhile someone like Drake is mostly accepted, yet he contradicts most of the criteria needed to fit in the Hip Hop genre coming from a middle class family and seemed to have struggled much less in comparison to your typical, successful, Hip-Hop-crowd-accepted rapper. Maybe it is because his skin can call out “Black!” in comparison to white rappers of visibly white skin. Even though he is not very relatable, the crowd accepts him because it does not matter where he came from. He is black and he needs our support. But, if you are white, we need to see credentials. How much did you struggle? What kind of childhood did you have? How much can you relate to us so that we know you understand us, therefore; we know if we can trust and like your music or not. It is mostly a double-standard. But, it is not an unjustified double-standard that one could rise up against and claim as unjust.  It is very much justified and very much understandable. Of course we need to know if we could relate to you before we spend money and time on you if you are white, because of course we will see you as a joke if we hear you using terms and acting a way that you most likely do not use at a job interview, or with your parents, or at business meetings, and basically signify that you are indeed an appropriator and not an appreciator and of course we will call you out for not understanding our struggle and acting like you do, because at the end of the day when we look at you, you certainly remind us of our day-to-day oppressors. That is simply common sense. It is fair? Well, is it fair that white privilege is still very prevalent and to this day everything good seems to still be much easier for white people to achieve than others? Not fair at all. Thus, the reason why whiteness in Hip Hop matters and why until the day all races are equal, we will keep frowning on the visible acts of our culture’s appropriation reaping benefits that do not benefit us financially, culturally, or in any other way. 

http://www.daveyd.com/articleultimatebattlerace.html

http://www.forharriet.com/2015/01/the-whiting-of-hip-hop-on.html#axzz43gpTVndE

SOURCES

Burks, S. L.. (2003). 8 Mile: Great White Hip-Hop. Black Camera, 18(2), 5–11. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/27761623

D, D. (n.d.). Hip Hop's Ultimate Battle: Race and the Politics of Divide and Conquer. Retrieved March 23, 2016, from http://www.daveyd.com/articleultimatebattlerace.html

Dawson, B. J. (n.d.). The "Whiting" of Hip Hop: On the Responsibility of White Artists in Black Music. Retrieved March 23, 2016, from http://www.forharriet.com/2015/01/the-whiting-of-hip-hop-on.html#axzz43gpTVndE

Emerson, R. A.. (2012). [Review of Thug Life: Race, Gender, and the Meaning of Hip-Hop]. American Journal of Sociology, 117(6), 1848–1850. http://doi.org/10.1086/664823

Kerr, A.. (2006). [Review of Buying Whiteness: Race, Culture and Identity from Columbus to Hip-Hop].The Sixteenth Century Journal, 37(3), 878–879. http://doi.org/10.2307/20478067

Mathers, Marshall. (2002). Without Me.On The Eminem Show  [CD]. Detroit, Michigan: Aftermath, Shady, Interscope.